1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to compressing and decompressing audio and image data. In particular, the present invention relates to a lossless encoder that uses a dynamic predictor and adaptive Golomb encoder to compress audio and image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
The proliferation of digital content has created an associated need for media on which to store that digital content. To provide full-screen real-time animations, storage that is by today's standards quite sizeable in quantity must be available. For example, a typical high-definition image resolution is 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, for a total of just under two megapixels. If the display is updated at 24 frames per second, this means that approximately 50 megapixels must be displayed every second. At a movie quality color depth of 48 bits per pixel, this means that 2.2 gigabits must be displayed every second, and a 90-minute movie requires almost 12 terabits (1.5 terabytes) of storage. Clearly, then, a way to compress these bits to save storage space is desirable. Unfortunately, conventional compression algorithms such as JPEG tend to be lossy—that is, information is lost as a part of the compression algorithm, and the original data cannot be completely recovered from the compressed data. This is an undesirable outcome, especially for videophiles and audiophiles not willing to sacrifice quality by giving up image resolution or audio fidelity.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for efficiently compressing image and audio data in a lossless manner.